Blog posting written by Hana Raskin, Communication Management and Design ’12, FLEFF Intern, New York City

Welcome to my blog! This spring we will embark on a journey together, as we experience and explore all that the 2012 Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival has to offer.

My name is Hana Raskin and I am a senior at Ithaca College where I study Communication Management and Design. I am originally from the East Village, a vibrant and diverse neighborhood in New York City. My neighborhood has many claims to fame: "beat generation godfather" Allen Ginsberg lived in the East Village and used it as inspiration for many of his poems, and there were also the Tompkins Square Riots in 1988, which captured the neighborhood's struggle with pervasive gentrification.

Moving to Ithaca was difficult at first; it was hard to sleep at night without fire engines and bar fights serving as the backdrop to my dreams. However, I have grown to love this town and all it has to offer. Ithaca has provided me with a strong sense of community that I never had growing up. Community would be one of the main reasons I decided to become a FLEFF intern, besides of course, my love for film.

FLEFF brings together the Ithaca College campus community with the Downtown Ithaca community and then Ithaca with the global community. FLEFF looks past the subjective borders that separate us by bringing us together in a global conversation on sustainability, immigration and other pertinent environmental and human rights issues.

We have partners and collaborations around the world. The collaboration that I am most exited for is with Cinema Tropical, which presents Latin American cinema in the United States. In New York City, Cinema Tropical organized screenings of Amores Perros and Y Tu Mama Tambien, which are two of my all-time favorite films!

My love for foreign films stems from my being an adventurer with a wanderlust spirit. I have studied in Argentina and Spain and have traveled to over 15 countries. During my most recent crazy trip, I took two 24-hour bus rides to spend two days in La Paz, Mexico. No regrets.

I have told you why I identify with Fleff, now I want to know why you do. What is it about FLEFF that connects to you and to your unique story?

2 Comments

7:14 p.m. on February 7, 2012Jennifer Barish said,

I am extremely jealous of your travels. I, too, have some wanderlust (but don't always have the means to act on it). Coming from a suburb outside Chicago, I also had to adjust to the slower moving, town of Ithaca. But "different" is good, and I think it's imperative that people get a little uncomfortable in a new place many times during their lives. Being uncomfortable is part of the learning process. Easy is just boring. Right?

10:54 a.m. on February 9, 2012Sarah Lockwood said,

Hana, I find it so fascinating that you had to 'adjust' to the quietness of Ithaca at night. I had the opposite problem, my home town is quite rural and I wasn't used to waking up every morning to a group of girls walking up and down the dorm hallway, or a truck's beeping outside my window. Very amusing.

Ironically enough, I also love to travel (spent time this summer in France & Spain) so... I guess it takes a little adjustment on everyone's part in order to truly see all parts of the world!